POLICE-STATIONS. 163 



fully developed, and had arrived here in plenty ; and to be 

 laid hold of by one, would have been undesirable : though 

 our party was strong enough to have made very short work 

 with the monster. 



So over we got, and through much mud, and up mountains 

 some fifteen hundred feet high, on which the vegetation was 

 even richer than any we had seen before ; and down the 

 other side, with the great lowland and the Gulf of Paria 

 opening before us. We rested at a police-station always 

 a pleasant sight in Trinidad, for the sake of the stal- 

 wart soldier-like brown policemen and their buxom wives, 

 and neat houses and gardens, a focus of discipline and 

 civilization amid what would otherwise relapse too soon 

 into anarchy and barbarism; we wdiiled away the time by 

 inspecting the ward police-reports, which were kept as 

 neatly, and worded as well, as they would have been in 

 England ; and then rolled comfortably in the carriage down 

 to Port of Spain, tired and happy, after three such days 

 as had made old blood and old brains young again. 



M 2 



